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Physical Review A

Collective emission of Ba Rydberg atoms in a resonant cavity

P. Kulina, C. Leonard, R.-H. Rinkleff

Published Jul 1, 1986• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Collective emission in a resonant cavity was observed between Ba Rydberg levels. The superradiant decays were controlled by varying the distance of the mirrors of the cavity. The superradiant character of the emission was checked by studying the variation of pulse height versus delay. The dependence between pulse height and delay was explained by modified Maxwell-Bloch equations.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.34.227

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Collective emission in a resonant cavity was observed between Ba Rydberg levels. The superradiant decays were controlled by varying the distance of the mirrors of the cavity. The superradiant character of the emission was checked by studying the variation of pulse height versus delay. The dependence between pulse height and delay was explained by modified Maxwell-Bloch equations.
Collective emission in a resonant cavity was observed between high-lying levels in Sr and Ba. These transitions react very sensitively to a static external electric field. The square root of the maximum of the intensity of the superfluorescent pulse decreases linearly with the second power of the electric field strength. The behavior of the maximum of the intensity, of the characteristic superfluorescent time, and of the delay time of the superfluorescent pulse was described in the framework of modified Maxwell-Bloch equations and explained by a change of the characteristic time constant of the superfluorescent pulse.
We present various experiments involving Rydberg atoms interacting with resonant microwave electromagnetic fields inside a cavity, allowing to check different features of the theory presented in the previous paper. We first describe experiments about superradiant emission by Rydberg states in the cavity, also called transient Rydberg atoms maser ; the evolution of the system is detected either on the populations by selective field ionization technique or on the microwave field itself by heterodyne detection. Very low thresholds, down to 100 atoms, for the maser emission have been observed. We then describe various aspects of collective absorption of radiation by very excited atoms including the observation of Rabi nutation in a small applied resonant field, the study of the quantum efficiency of this set-up considered as a microwave photon counter, and finally the unexpected characteristics of the blackbody radiation absorption in the cavity.
We have studied the decay of Rydberg excitations in a cold Rb gas. A 10 ns, pulsed-dye-amplified diode laser excites Rb atoms at $70\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}$ in a magneto-optical trap to nsnsns or npnpnp Rydberg states with principal quantum numbers $26\ensuremath{\le}n\ensuremath{\le}40$. Time-delayed state-selective field ionization is used to directly monitor the population in the initial and neighboring Rydberg levels. The measured time dependence of the Rydberg population is well described by numerical simulations which consider only spontaneous emission and population transfer by blackbody radiation. No evidence for collective decay is found at atom densities up to $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{9}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$. This result is in contrast to a previous study [Wang et al., Phys. Rev. A 75, 033802 (2007)], in which superradiant decay was theoretically predicted and experimentally inferred for atom density and laser focal volume conditions very similar to those considered here. Suppression of collective emission is likely due to variations in transition energies within the atom sample, dominated by inhomogeneities in dipole-dipole exchange interactions for initial sss states, or by a combination of dipole-dipole and electric field inhomogeneities for the initial ppp states.
A collection of NNN Rydberg atoms and a resonant millimeter-wave cavity are shown to exchange energy back and forth at a rate $2(\frac{d}{\ensuremath{\hbar}}){\mathcal{E}}_{0}\sqrt{N}$, where ddd is the electric dipole matrix element of the atomic transition and E0{\mathcal{E}}_{0}E0​ the "field per photon" in the cavity. This experiment is a demonstration of self-induced Rabi oscillations in a two-level atom system coupled to a single electromagnetic field mode and can also be considered as a very simple illustration of "ringings" in superradiant emission.
The decay characteristics of two-state Rydberg atoms are investigated in a microwave cavity driven simultaneously by two strong rf fields. Tuning one of the driving fields leads to sharp resonances in the decay rate of the upper atomic level. Their width may become smaller than the cavity linewidth and transit time broadening. We present a theoretical model, interpreting the resonances as cavity-induced decay of Floquet states of the composite atom-field system. The observed phenomena arise from the interplay of cavity-modified Bloch-Siegert shifts and dynamic enhancement of spontaneous emission at single-photon and multiphoton resonances.